darkSpyro

(1) When I tap on a house or sanctuary, it should only show me applicable Skylanders. I should never have the option of putting a non-dragon into the dragon house, nor a boy into the girl's house, nor a non-legendary into a legendary house. It should be smart and display only the applicable Skylanders. Why would it allow me to even try putting a Firelander into the Water Sanctuary?

(2) When tapping on an adventure balloon, I should have a second set of tabs for leveled browsing. If I have to scroll through the Level 10s and 15s to find the unleveled Skylanders, the app is not optimizing the experience for the user.

(3) What the heck happened to the "Quest" flag on Skylanders who need to clear troll and sheep mobs? I do appreciate that the troll/ sheep mobs automatically go to the element that needs to complete a quest, but with 100+ Skylanders currently doing their quests (I got completely reset, remember?), it's a headache trying to remember who needs what.

(4) Can we get a "Quest" flag on specific Skylanders who need to go on a particular adventure? Similar argument to (3).

Have I missed any obvious points where Smart Search/ Selection could be implemented/ improved?

Seconded.

I'm currently quite peeved at Tree Rex and Gnarly Tree Rex. As the two most profitable characters in the game, they're my first choice for every sheep mob, troll, sanctuary and balloon. To have to scroll down to find them EVERY DAMN TIME even though they were the last character used is driving me insane.

Extra bonus questions for Dios: since you got reset, how on earth did you manage to acquire FIVE magic shrines since you can't get extras out of the well anymore? I've only seen one magic shrine quest since Activision chewed up your game and spat it out. And when you got reset, did that mean you lost all the number one fans and are now unable to repurchase them?

I think sometimes when they do a big update, they overlook the smart selection thing. Sometimes it's really bad to the point where when you tap on a house and it'll take you to a totally different element, and you have to search for the right skylander for that house. I know it's a real pain, but I thinks it's just something we have to live with every now & then as it's probably easier for them to fix the little niggling problems at a later date when they introduce big changes. It's quite obvious the devs read this forum, and problems may exist which they don't even know about. Just be patient as they usually have a patch fix within a couple of days.

They seem to be at least part-way there with the smart search. When you tap on a character's house, it brings you to that character. When you tap on a Hall of Legends, it brings you to the next available legend. When you tap on sheep/trolls, it brings you to a Skylander that has a quest for them. What it doesn't do any more is flag the characters that have the quest - not sure why they would take that out as it was a good reminder. Even when you tap on bats, if your SF characters are available, it will optimize for most gems. As for looking for characters that need to be levelled up, it keeps your newest ones at the top left, and those are usually the ones that need it most, so easy to find. Maybe the best thing they could do is let you customize the order they are shown in so that everyone can do it to match their individual preferences.

HappyGamer, I'll address both points you made.

Quote: HappyGamer

They seem to be at least part-way there with the smart search. When you tap on a character's house, it brings you to that character. When you tap on a Hall of Legends, it brings you to the next available legend. When you tap on sheep/trolls, it brings you to a Skylander that has a quest for them.

"Bringing [me] to the character" is nice, but I've more than once been going through the Halls of Legends and tapped non-legendaries because a new alter ego shifted everyone a slot, and so now my muscle memory has to be retuned.

Worse, with the recent update, it goes in a weird order of elements as "next available." It'll hop around instead of going sequentially. This is even more aggravating since no muscle memory can be set for the task. If they presented a selection screen with only legendaries or only Tree Rexes, then it'd be obvious who is available and who's next.

Quote: HappyGamer

As for looking for characters that need to be levelled up, it keeps your newest ones at the top left, and those are usually the ones that need it most, so easy to find.

This is aggravating on many levels too. For me, with the complete wipe, everyone needs to be leveled. There is no "most" to it.

Second, the selection screen rarely starts at the top for me. It is almost always midway down the selection chart. (It may do that for those with a quest to complete, like my level 6 who needs a 22-hour adventure. I can't even send him off for it though, so while he doesn't "need it most," he's the go-to guy for the current selection mechanism. A set of level tabs would help alleviate this problem, as well as the "quest" flag.)

And third, there are so many characters now that scrolling through an element is tedious. When I tap the "life" element for Camo for the dragon house, I almost always have to scroll around looking for him. When there were eight or nine in an element, okay, still manageable. When magic hit twelve, well, okay, two sets of six. Now finding the low level guys is tedious and time consuming, so much so that I've abandoned the adventure balloons until I get everyone leveled to 8+ with the sanctuaries.

And fourth, there's no rhyme or reason to the character order.

I'd rather see smart search before customization of order because smart because no matter how I sort them, the smart search still has to help. Which it currently won't be prepared to do.

Isn't the character order mostly the order in which you unlock them? I'm sure that's not helpful for dios, who unlocked ALL of them at once...

And Woz, why don't you use your tree rexes in the Life Sanctuary?

Quote: midas73

Isn't the character order mostly the order in which you unlock them?

I think it used to be but since the last big update my Skylanders are in some random crazy order. Stealth Elf that I've had forever is near the top while Fireworks Zook and Legendary Stealth Elf, that I got fairly recently with a spin, are at the bottom. It's so aggravating to look for everyone I need. Even alphabetical order would make some kind of sense.

Quote: midas73

And Woz, why don't you use your tree rexes in the Life Sanctuary?

I do.

From above: "As the two most profitable characters in the game, they're my first choice for every sheep mob, troll, SANCTUARY and balloon."

However, at the moment, they are better placed in Adventure Airships on 13-hour missions at well over 2,000 hero points per mission while I'm trying to lift them to Level 15.

I see. I don't see them as a choice for anything other than the sanctuaries. Not worth worrying about for mobs, I think they're better served in the sanctuary than on missions and I don't think you get bonus gold for chests (but even so, I'm not going to delay filling my sanctuaries to wait for them). I'm also not rushing to level them up since they're so valuable in the sanctuaries. I may pull one out at a time but I doubt I'd do the totally inefficient longer missions...

Search/sorting/whatever, this part of the game needs significant improvement. I was clearing some mobs this morning for a character quest and the game doesn't even go the last skylander you used anymore. It was going to the middle of the last element I used so that I have to scroll to the same charcter each time.

I vote that we could just sort the elements so I can put the ones I use the most at the top rather than have them scattered all over.

It would definitely be nice to be able to do some custom sorting. I think the more they try to predict what you want, the worse it will be, given that different people will be in different situations and have different preferences. Your preferences may also change with time as you progress through the game, get new characters, etc.

Probably the most useful thing they could do is prevent you from tapping an invalid character, maybe doing something as simple as greying-out the ones that can't be used for a specific task and highlighting those that have a quest for that task. It really irritates me when I tap on the wrong character and, instead of saying no, it takes me to show me where that one is currently being used.

Perhaps I haven't made my suggestion clear.

Instead of the usual selection screen for, say, a legendary house, you'll get a selection screen with only the legendaries. For Tree Rex's house, you'll get a selection screen with only the Tree Rexes (and Barkley, I suppose).

For the Adventure Balloon, I am suggesting a second set of tabs for level. Ideally, if I have no level 1s, then there would be no "1" tab, though I realize asking for the ideal is a tall order. I'll be happy with fifteen tabs on the right side of the adventure balloon selection screen.

Dios, I understood what you meant, and in an ideal world I would agree. However, given the trouble that seems to pop up with even smaller changes I thought going simple might be the best solution. I also think that having too many tabs would be pretty hard on the eyes for those using iPhones or iPods. Basically, I like your idea, but I'm not confident of the dev's ability to deliver.

I'll just add that a lot of this grief would be eliminated with a "repeat" or "last combo" option.

Then you just need to take the time to get everything right once and then "repeat" as needed.

This is my case in point:

When I click on the dragon houses, it takes me to the first unoccupied dragon (I guess). However, I want to level up bday Bash. So I put Crusher into his house, then I click the dragon house so I know it's on the earth element. It takes me to Flashwing. Okay… I click the next one. It skips Bash and takes me to Jade. I click again. Still not Bday - now Bash. Finally Bday on the fourth click. Why in the world would it skip around like that?? There's no rhyme or reason to it.

Another example. I want to put Camo into dragon house. It takes me to magic, so I click the Life element. Camo is not on the screen. I have to scroll and find him. Why? If only dragons can go in the dragon house, why in the world would it not (at the very least) take me to the dragon on the selection screen?

The search function is stupid. In should be fixed, especially considering how many Skylanders there are now, and more on the way. At least an extra set of tabs for sorting.

I would like to see a companion like beatrees added for missions. Maybe it would work like the sanctuary queue where any time you tap an adv. balloon the queue stays up until you filled all your balloons or all the ones you want. That mixed with the smart selections ideas from this thread would have me layin down my cold hard gems pronto style.

This is ridiculous. The dragon houses: click one, it goes to life. Okay, click the next, undead. Okay, click next, it goes to air. What? There are FOUR earth dragons. Why would it skip up to air? After that? Down to magic. WHY?

Gods this is so broken.

Did I mention the new Swap Force timed quest? That finding a Swap Force member required scrolling every time, since it would drop me in the middle of an element selection screen? That there should be a convenient search option for just Swap Force?

Yea the whole thing is getting bad. Why does it default to the middle of the element so that you possibly need to scroll up and down to find what you are looking for?

C-an we at least get it going to the top?

-Still looking for the ability to sort the characters in each element the way I use them: the ones I use most at the top.

-A use last/repeat option would be helpful as well.

The easiest fix and the one they really, really should implement is that when you click on a house, balloon, shrine, etc. the screen defaults back to the same skylander that was in that house/balloon/shrine/etc the last time.

With the bird house out now, my suggestion for a special selection menu that shows only the available skylanders OR a second set of tabs for sorting/ browsing is all the more pertinent.

I'd be happy if they just grayed out the ones that are busy or don't work with whatever you're doing. That'd be easy, no?

Case in point: I had no clue Fire Kraken nor his Jade counterpart were considered dragons by the game until I accidentally clicked on him this morning.

I believe Fire Kraken changed status in the Monday update. This change is super annoying because he seems to be the #1 priority dragon - the game goes to him first unless he is busy.

Selection of characters by the game appears to be random. Why does it go to Fire Kraken first? After that it seems to just bounce around.

With the houses, the sanctuaries, ballons, etc the game is really becoming unwieldy. It took me 20 minutes this morning to collect from everything and load everything back up. Granted I'm 40 with all the skylanders and their houses but this is taking too long for a tap game.

I like and enjoy the game but the time it takes to play is becoming too long because I spend too much time searching around skylanders.

Improvements to the selection are needed to help speed things up.

>>>I strongly feel the game needs to start defaulting to whoever was in the slot last.