darkSpyro

My wife began playing Lost Islands on Novemer 14th, when it was released for Android. Fifteen minutes ago she reached level 40. Sixty-two days is all it took.

Certainly this was much faster than it took me when I started playing over a year ago. I've been thinking about what changed. I'm using this as a forum to air my thoughts on the matter but would love for others to weigh in on the subject. In the interest of full disclosure, she spent $12 on gems in that time.

The first thing that gave my wife a leg up was my knowledge. I knew what type of quests were upcoming, allowing less wasted effort. If I knew there was a quest to build a particular building or grow a particular crop then she waited until the quest popped up to do it. She knew to save sheep and trolls for quests rather than clearing them immediately. Various other experience played a part. There's not much the devs can do about this.

The second major factor is timing. The Android version was launched right before a Wishin' Weekend. All the alts were in the well along with thier houses. All companions were on sale. This allowed her to gain major advantages very quickly. The very existence of the well is a major advantage we didn't have a year ago. Wishstones are plentiful. Free gold, alts, houses, etc. The initial buildup was so much easier for her. She had all the companions, alts, giant/alt/sidekick houses, all nine islands unlocked and was at level 27 within 72 hours of starting the game. I suspect the big weekend was planned to aid the new Android players. I don't think they intended this much aid.

This brings up the biggest game change, the existence of the giant houses. When Tree-Rextravaganza happened over a year ago, I had enough gems saved to buy the first house. It was a HUGE leap for me. My wife had eighteen of them effectively right off the bat. After about one week she no longer had to grow crops to get energy. I've said it before, the houses seriously unbalance the game.

Gems were plentiful between the houses and the skylanders levelling up. This leads to the next factor, the companions. I knew which ones were most immediately useful for gem, gold and XP production. Those were the first ones she bought. This lead to a cycle of more gems, another companion, more gems... At 50% off all companions, this didn't take long. The slow release of companions has made sense for the long term players. We get them in a manageable timeframe with incremental bonuses to the game. Opening them up all at once for new players makes it too easy. Wheellock and Fiznik in particular speed things up too much.

I understand wanting to get new players up to speed but that only helps if catching them up serves a purpose. But the purpose of the game is to sell gems, and to a lesser extent toys. The advantages being offered have negated that purpose. I started the game, as many do, determined never to spend real money. As I have with other games, eventually I give in when a small expense would provide a major advantage. So I give in. $2 here, $2 there. I didn't spend much, but I was willing to spend. This is what they want. I haven't had to buy gems in a looooong time. I emptied out my gems for the most recent companion. That was only a few weeks ago. I have over 3700 again. I buy new buildings or companions as soon as they are released 90% of the time. The rest of the time it only takes a day or two. This isn't what the game needs to survive.

My wife spent $12. Two months and $12 has put her at level 40, 129 Skylanders, 41 at level 15 and the rest not far behind, every companion, 27 million gold, over a thousand spare wishstones, 11 thousand Kudos, 2630 gems, 2.4 million energy and only one active quest.

The game needs to be harder. New content needs to happen to keep players interested. The ideal is that the new content always be almost in reach for most players. The real power players don't need to spend money anymore. Those determined to spend any money won't. It is the majority in between that need to be the target. They need to be almost able to keep up without spending. Tempt them with $1 and $2 purchases. If they skip an upgrade they won't have to buy gems for the next, so they don't get frustrated at buying all the time, but the temptation to spend just a little is always there.

This is what the game needs. To few upgrades and we save too much, own it all, and get bored. To many and we stop playing because we don't want to spend money all the time. And the upgrades need to be moderate enough, both in price and ability, to not unbalance the game. It is that last criteria that they are failing at. Many of us are expecting an Android starter kit. If $12 let's a player beat a game, what incentive to buy a $50 starter is there?

Thoughts?

You're right about the companions making a lot of difference. As you say, when we started, there was no such thing. I think they should have set up the companions so that they all had minimum level requirements of some sort, just to give newcomers the feeling that they've actually earned the bonuses.

The timing of the super weekend was, in a way, unfortunate in that all of the houses and alts that we had to wait months for and only had a short window of time to get were suddenly available at once. Add to this the sales that have been happening and they're just so easy to pick up there's really not much challenge to the game. Like you say, once you get all the houses gem production becomes simple. It's one thing to have the gem production get easier as you continue to level up, making it possible to get the expensive companions, etc. But if things are that easy nearly from the start there's much less reward to working your way through the levels.

I think the biggest challenge with a game like this is keeping it interesting for all levels, and part of that is having the premium items and companions become available gradually. I imagine you got a lot more enjoyment out of your year-long journey through the game than your wife did with her two months!

I wish I had your wifes knowledge on how to level up faster... I'm on level 25, I have 61 Skylanders, 10,200 gems, 1million gold, 110,000 energy. I have 26/44 Companions...
Can you guys give me some tips on getting through it better? I think I lack gold & energy. I can write down all the companions I have, maybe I am missing some I need to buy?
Whats the best way to level up faster & which companions should I be buying with gems?

I've been playing since around March/April and still haven't reached 40 (although I'm at 39 so almost there). I'm only missing 3 companions (Batterson, Avril and Tessa) and much of them I ended up getting during the well glitch. I think your wife's experience is rare. Although I'm sure I can be earning more kingdom xp if I handle my buildings better. But, unlike your wife, I didn't have someone guiding me at the beginning and haven't felt like deleting houses and working at it. I would say that most people are that way. With that said, releasing certain companions at certain levels would probably be a good idea. They were doing that before. Since I've been at higher levels for a while, I haven't thought about it. You still have to get to level 27 to raise your Skylanders above 10. Maybe companions such as Fiznit and Wheelock should be opened at a later level.

BTW, I still don't see how one could produce enough energy through houses. Lately, I've been running out of energy. I had to stop using the sanctuaries. I even have Ol' Mac and Arbor. But I also have Ermit and Flynn that cut my sanctuary and adventure times in half.

I play multiple accounts that started at different times and I found that once the option to buy companions for spins, some of which are quite cheap in the beginning, came along things moved much quicker. I could get totems because I wasn't losing them to the one sky lander I didn't have, this in turn gave me more stones and the alts with higher earning potential and other well swag that boosted kingdom XP. Also more gem producing companions have been introduced, these speed things up significantly. Plus as mentioned the exp. of going through before is invaluable.

My first kingdom was a total waste, by the time I got to my third I was knocking it out. On the solstice weekend with double everything i got to level 20 and had something like 12 sl one was a giant and all the buildings I could get, and no real money spent. So things go quicker with the way the game offers more combined with player XP, it's way faster. In fact I've been toying with the idea of starting over a 4th time, as the game plays so much more different at the front than the end.

I have all companions but Tessa and cherry and don't feel a need for them, I have over 3.5 million in energy and almost 100 million in gold, I do my sanctuaries 3 times a day and have no lack in energy and how I do that is send the balloons for 11 minutes and crops at 1 hour. Even if you send the balloons out a few times in an hour you will still get more energy than you use, as each balloon only costs 75 energy and returns 4 to 5 thousand in gold, it's a win win.
I collect 40 thousand in energy and 200 thousand in gold if I don't come back and sent the balloons out a second time in that hour.

Quote: obidawsn

BTW, I still don't see how one could produce enough energy through houses. Lately, I've been running out of energy. I had to stop using the sanctuaries. I even have Ol' Mac and Arbor. But I also have Ermit and Flynn that cut my sanctuary and adventure times in half.

Actually that part is easy. There are 19 houses. I get energy at least one third of the time. High level Skylanders give me between 3 and 7k energy, call it 5k on average. Running them three times a day gives me a bit under 100k energy per day. That not counting Hall of Legends, dragon/bird/swap/dark houses, HQs and any statues, easter baskets and sheep topiaries. Including those I get more like 250 - 300k energy per day. The most I've ever managed to maintain for a long period was 500k energy spent per day. That was when, between houses, adventures and sanctuaries, I was levelling up 81 Skylanders at once. Sure, my energy did go down during that time, but I have not grown crops for any reason than a quest requirement since early last April. I have over 39 million energy. I did ONCE manage to spend two million energy in a single day. That was the day the level cap went from 10 to 12 and I was running 45 second adventures non-stop all day in twentyish balloons. That day was the last time I planted crops.

I admit that as a rule I never run my sanctuaries. I don't need the gold and I only have two Skylanders left that are not at level 15. There's nothing for me to spend gold on so there's no point. I run the Molekin Market every day and my gold still goes up. That's just from houses/halls/etc, shrines, any gold producing buildings and my lone two adventuring characters. After a point there just isn't any need. I get around 1.4 million gold a day just from houses/halls/etc. I was at 615 million gold a couple days ago but got bored and dropped 80 million on houses to see if I could find a maximum number for some of the higher level houses. (Other than Wood Stack, I didn't find any.)

I've actually considered selling all my fields and reclaiming the space.

Granted, I only picked up my last few houses since the personal offers returned, but I was running the Halls when I got them for 100 wish stones. I don't run all the Halls because I don't have all the Legendaries, yet, but I run most of them. I still wasn't getting enough energy, even with all my fields going. Maybe if I wasn't running the sanctuaries. I may start going back to running one Skylander in each sanctuary to help level them up instead of 3 and see what happens. I used to run 3 in each one (although I just decided to open my last island not too long before EotD went down) and have a surplus of energy each day, but over the last month I noticed I was running out of energy. Since I stopped running my sanctuaries, I now have 3 mil energy and counting. I have plenty of spare Skylanders, so running them is only an energy issue. I guess to have enough energy from your houses, it may depend on how often you send your Skylanders out.

My energy has been floating around 3 mil for the last month or two. I run my sanctuaries with 3 Skylanders in each 4 times a day, and plant crops overnight and sometimes a few times during the day if the EotD happens to be working. The topiaries give a bit of a boost, but mostly it's all the houses (all the alts, giants, 12 legends, a few of the dragons, scouts, cadettes, bird). I don't really need to keep everything going, but why not? I produce enough energy to keep going while adding about 5 million gold and 100+ gems each day. Eventually I'll have a reason to start spending again, I hope.

In the end, the houses give the best boost for gold and energy to help you finish your quests, so they're a good investment if you've got the skylanders to put in them.

The answer is in HappyGamer's post.

The houses and the other gem producing companions. Sanctuaries produce gems in the 2nd and 3rd slot. Sugarbats.

You invest in them and then overtime they produce enough gems to allow you to buy more houses or companions.

At some point is just starts an avalanche which accelerates the whole process. Think about it: if you can get yourself to generate 25 gems per day, you can buy a 350 gem house every 14 days. With the new house, now you are generating 27 gems per day. Two weeks later, another one and now you are generating 29 gems per day. Now you are getting a house every 12 days. Plus all the houses are on sale now.

Diggs gives you 25 gems per day... Everyone at 40 should be getting at least 25-30 gems per day from Diggs + chests, bats, sanctuaries even if you don't own a single house.

Obi - pick up Old Mac if you can. Energy literally becomes a non-issue once you have him. It is game changing.

I haven't bought anything with real money and after laying down close to 1k on MUT in Madden 2012, I will probably not ever pay for digital content to help me win/do better in a game again (it was an addiction). I just started playing in early to mid December, I have about 5 companions left to get (don't really need because energy, exp, gold...is all good). I did time travel to get enough gems to buy the alt egos I didn't have and to get Diggs when he was on sale. I won about 8 alts in the well. I just broke level 40. I started out with almost every skylander, because I have almost all of them (except the dark swap force, Volcanic Eruptor and the Swap force that haven't come out yet), so that helped with some gems to start off. Getting Legendary Halls (14 of them helped out quite a bit).

Charred, as I mentioned before, I do have Ol' Mac.

I think the energy shortage would be much less of a problem if the EotD was back up and running. Amazing how that extra 40-60% helps!