Not sure if this needs to be under pets or gardening, but here it is anyway.
KI has done a change to the energy renewal with the opening of the test realm, which I feel still does not answer the concerns of the wizard community. And yes, the update has a timing bug, which I will address through the bug reports when I get back on line. However, I got to thinking about what might work better than the quicker renewal of energy. I understand KI wants to encourage folks to remain members by making it more beneficial to have a running subscription, rather than having us dedicated gamers simply buying areas with crowns for permanent long term use of the game. That is sound economic thinking on KI’s part.
But quicker renewal of energy doesn’t really address the basic problem with the pet and gardening functions. Players need to maintain a balance of pet training and gardening and yet not have those functions such a long drawn out process that players become bored or completely frustrated. KI needs to encourage the use of those functions in such a way that casual players, like younger kids can enjoy them, and more seasoned gamers have some limitations so they don’t overwhelm the balance of the system. (Flooding the bazaar with plant harvests or unlimited pet hatching.)
Let me more clearly define the problems. With pet training, if I want to train a pet to epic, I need a total of 1875 experience points. If I use crafted or purchased level 6 snacks and do reasonably well in the training game I will usually average 12 experience points per training round. But I don’t always have level 6 snacks and not always have something the pet likes, so I average about 10 points per round over the whole journey to epic. Occasionally, I can speed this up with purchase of mega snacks, but that isn’t always an option. So I’m looking at 188 training rounds to get to epic with one pet. Now with available energy ranging from 42 to 72 depending on my wizard’s level, I can expect to spend 13 rounds at 2 energy to get to teen (26 energy), 25 rounds at 4 energy to get to adult (100 energy), 50 rounds at 6 energy to get to ancient (300 energy), and 100 rounds at 8 energy to get to epic (800 energy). So I need a total of 1226 energy to get a pet to epic.
If I’m lucky during the week, I get a chance to train my pets or garden twice a day, but most times, it is only once a day. On weekends, I can sometimes garden or train my pet 3 times a day, but again, twice a day is more the norm. For kids who are limited by school and parental time limits, they may find they are lucky to get on a couple times a week. So assuming I only get to train once a day, it takes 17 days for my legendary wizards to get a pet to epic and about 30 days to get one to epic with my low level wizards using the total energy listed above.
With gardening even a modest 5 - 6 plants, can seriously cut down on the energy available to train my pets, as much as doubling or tripling the time it takes to get a pet to epic. Even by using some wizards to train pets and some to garden, it makes for a very long drawn out process. And for kids that can only get on line a few times a week, or for people that go on vacation, they find that they can’t garden at all because their plants die before they can get back to them.
So the bottom line in all that – where’s the enjoyment, the fun?
So what’s my solution? Many players have requested a separate energy globe for gardening, or the use of wisps to refill energy globes, or gold to refill similar to potion refills. I’ve got an idea for a separate globe that will still provide some limitations to the serious gamers, but will increase the fun for folks that have more limited time resources. I’d like to see separate globes for gardening energy and pet training energy, but instead of a slowly timed refill, you would get all your energy for a 24 hour period at once with a set number of refills possible each day. Refills could occur through wisps or with a gold purchase like the potions. For gardening, I envision a flower with 4 - 6 petals. One petal would get your full energy allotment for the day. The other petals are your optional refills for the day but you can’t refill more than those number of petals in one day. Some of the optional petals could be wisp or gold filled and some could be filled with crowns purchased elixirs. The center of the flower is a halt button, to stop your plants from growing or dying while you are away for long periods of time. Clicking the halt button will both stop and start your plant growth cycles. Hovering over the halt button would tell you if your plants are growing or not. This would allow players to adjust the size of their gardens to meet their needs while adjusting to time constraints. It also allows KI to earn crowns purchase revenue from the serious gamers, while still having limits on the gardening system so there remains a balance.
For the pet energy globe, I see a similar arrangement. Your globe gets it’s full energy allotment each 24 hours, but in the base of the globe, there are jewels for the optional 1 – 5 refills. Again, some of the optional refills are wisp or gold refills, and some are crowns purchased elixir refills. And players still have the option of buying mega snack packs with crowns as well to speed up the process if they have the funds to do so. Or, when they are lucky, they can get mega snacks from the bazaar, or from their gardening efforts. (I got 4 tasty biscuits from my cornbread fruit bush instead of the expected level 9 mega snack at elder, so gardening for mega snacks is not guaranteed.)
With these globe options in place, I can see the time for pet training cut in half, much better for the casual player, or attention limited kids. And it provides incentives to spend crowns for the more serious gamers, a plus for KI. For gardening, it provides the opportunity for more enjoyment of the gardening system, and again the revenue possibilities for KI. Although, I think some adjustments might still need to be made in the rate of growth of the plants at different levels, but that is a whole other topic. Let me know what you think.
Your numbers look good, but you are addressing a player who spends moderate to little time on the game. With the boost, a player who logs on early in their day, then lunch break, then late afternoon, and just before bed can do a whole lot more. With sub players gaining 12 per hour, that means someone with 70 points will regen in under six hours, so using the above times, will now have 280+ points per day. Therefore, 1226 will take about 4 to 4.5 days....allowing for a real modest garden of say 5 reasonable plants, that is a week of training and gardening for the avid player.
Now, while your analysis was a low estimate, the above is a high estimate, but averaging in between the low (yours) and the above (high), you actually get to a good place for play.
Thanks for the comment, and you are exactly right. My idea is focused towards those that cannot be online with the game as much. Heaven knows, I'd be on there all the time if I could! That's why I got the idea of getting all the basic energy at one time, so that I could use as much as possible in the limited time I have, while still enjoying other aspects of the game as well. The idea of the petals or jewels for extra energy allows for expanded training or gardening for those with the time or crowns yet also provides some limitation for the more avid and able gamers. KI would have to determine how much energy would be available to the base energy level and for the additional add on energy. What I would like to see is pet leveling from baby to epic in no more than 10 - 12 days at base level and with the additional energy add ons dropping that down to about 6 - 7 days. Then the crowns additional elixirs taking it down to 3 - 4 days. KI would also need to determine if the energy level would be the same for a beginning wizard or a legendary. I would think the numbers above would be for a legendary with it taking a bit longer for a low level wizard. Of course if they are using mega snacks in this scenario, it woud probably be possible to level a pet in a day, so I don't know how that would fit in with KI's plan. LOL, here's hoping anyway.
