The price needs to be adjusted for the PPs. I find the price is far to high and the drop rate is far too low once you reach cool ranch.

Cool Ranch by itself is REALLY hard, but it's even harder when you can't get the gold together to level up your crew. Most of the time you have to go back a land and waste more time fighting things that don't drop the price tag the PPs are.

The game really needs to either scale up it's gold drop-rate/payout or it needs to cut the price to buy PPs dramatically.

Also on another note it really doesn't matter who I make my second and third mate- it always puts in the guys from the very bottom on my list into combat.

So again it's really important I can level up EVERYONE in my crew so I don't get stuck with guys I couldn't afford to buy PPs for.

It just makes the difficulty of Cool Ranch worse.

SherlocksClues on Dec 2, 2012 wrote:

The price needs to be adjusted for the PPs. I find the price is far to high and the drop rate is far too low once you reach cool ranch.

Cool Ranch by itself is REALLY hard, but it's even harder when you can't get the gold together to level up your crew. Most of the time you have to go back a land and waste more time fighting things that don't drop the price tag the PPs are.

The game really needs to either scale up it's gold drop-rate/payout or it needs to cut the price to buy PPs dramatically.

Also on another note it really doesn't matter who I make my second and third mate- it always puts in the guys from the very bottom on my list into combat.

So again it's really important I can level up EVERYONE in my crew so I don't get stuck with guys I couldn't afford to buy PPs for.

It just makes the difficulty of Cool Ranch worse.

Good suggestion, either give us more gold or lower the cost of the training points. Doesn't make sense in a game where you have no control over who you can bring into battle besides your first mate to have to worry about having the gold to level up so many.

I've been working really hard and so far have gotten to level 32 with only 13 companions but that still means the guy who has a 2% chance of showing up in battle shows up WAY to often. He's last on my list for a reason, besides liking other companions more, I can't afford to keep him closer to my level.

But, and I know I've said this before, if the game designers would just allow us to un-equip some of them and leave them in our house or "release them from duty" we wouldn't have to worry about it so much. I'd rather they let us un-equip them, leave them in our dorm room, our house or below deck so I can get them when I need them.

I think a mandatory minimum of 6 (besides your first mate) should be perfectly acceptable in this game. My suggestion still allows for "randomness" while giving players the ability to actually manage their crew like any captain would. Then you could work on training your next favorite 6.

My other suggestions was to give them the same xp our characters get from battles and abolish the training points all together. And when we turn in a quest and get the xp, everyone on our crew should get it too.

Shiningfantasia on Dec 2, 2012 wrote:

I quite honestly did not find Cool Ranch difficult.

The absolute beauty of this game is the fact that you can grind. I am now level 50, have not even finished Haunted Skyway yet, and all my companions are at least level 47.

But this isn't wow. There is no reason I should have to work that hard in a game meant for families! It's great you were able to do it but they are failing with the rest of the target audience!

And I REALLY love the suggestion about leaving behind crew. If I could take my top 8 or 6 I think it would solve so many headaces that I am having now trying to get threw Cool Ranch. I am really tired of those 2% showing up ALL the time.

Frankly I was kinda hoping we'd be able to fire crew later on- but leaving them behind works just as well for me!

Shiningfantasia on Dec 2, 2012 wrote:

I quite honestly did not find Cool Ranch difficult.

The absolute beauty of this game is the fact that you can grind. I am now level 50, have not even finished Haunted Skyway yet, and all my companions are at least level 47.

Just because you may not have found something difficult ShiningFantasia, does not mean others wont. Everyone has different play styles and strategies. You also have had advantages over others, you got to learn good strategies early on.

Now, my question is, if you are level 50 now and have not even finished Haunted Skyway, that sounds like a serious exploit that KI needs to know about.

If you don't want to grind, stop leveling your companions when they are two or three levels below you.

If you don't mind grinding, then you can choose to level up your companions all the way to your level cap.

Be aware that if you are buying training tomes, you are engaging in an optional activity. Between the points you get from leveling up, and just a few side quests, you will have enough points to keep your most valuable companions competitive, and even the less valuable ones "close enough."

You may occasionally get a bad draw, and get a lower level companion; this happens. It might even cost you a win every now and then. You should not have any expectation to make it through the entire game without losing a single combat (although this is certainly possible once you have mastered the game).

If you want to keep your companions all leveled up to the maximum level at all times, you are choosing to make them as powerful as possible, which in turn will make combat much easier. But this "short cut" is offset by the fact that you'll have to engage in other activities (ie, grinding out gold) to compensate. You're probably better off just spending that time to complete some of the side quests that award training tomes-- there are lots of quests like this.

All of that being said, rest assured that I am definitely here to help-- we want the game to be challenging and rewarding, not frustrating.

Ratbeard on Dec 6, 2012 wrote:

If you don't want to grind, stop leveling your companions when they are two or three levels below you.

If you don't mind grinding, then you can choose to level up your companions all the way to your level cap.

Be aware that if you are buying training tomes, you are engaging in an optional activity. Between the points you get from leveling up, and just a few side quests, you will have enough points to keep your most valuable companions competitive, and even the less valuable ones "close enough."

You may occasionally get a bad draw, and get a lower level companion; this happens. It might even cost you a win every now and then. You should not have any expectation to make it through the entire game without losing a single combat (although this is certainly possible once you have mastered the game).

If you want to keep your companions all leveled up to the maximum level at all times, you are choosing to make them as powerful as possible, which in turn will make combat much easier. But this "short cut" is offset by the fact that you'll have to engage in other activities (ie, grinding out gold) to compensate. You're probably better off just spending that time to complete some of the side quests that award training tomes-- there are lots of quests like this.

All of that being said, rest assured that I am definitely here to help-- we want the game to be challenging and rewarding, not frustrating.

Wait a minute.

How is leveling up the companions game developers force us to have "optional" or a "short cut"? Especially when we can't "choose" not to have them or "choose" to have a smaller active duty roster?

Leveling up our companions isn't a "choice," it's a decision the developers made about how they are acquired, how they level, how many, how much gold it cost, etc, etc, etc.

That's like when Apple said, "It's not a bug, it's a feature."

C'mon guys, ALL of us playing the game aren't 10-year-olds.

Darth JT on Dec 5, 2012 wrote:

Just because you may not have found something difficult ShiningFantasia, does not mean others wont. Everyone has different play styles and strategies. You also have had advantages over others, you got to learn good strategies early on.

Now, my question is, if you are level 50 now and have not even finished Haunted Skyway, that sounds like a serious exploit that KI needs to know about.

ROFL my dear, dear DarthJT.

I point you to the Wizard101 forums where I posted a one too many complaint about Avalon gameplay difficulty. Having all started with Celestia, no less.

I rest my case.

And I do not think it is an exploit at all. I farmed almost every day for WEEKS to get to where I am. So, again, I don't think it is an exploit at all.

Darth JT on Dec 7, 2012 wrote:

Oh, I have farmed and farmed myself, on all my pirates. Not only for the armadillo pet, but for gold at the abandoned church graveyard. I got 100k a few times, bought ships for all my pirates, bought training tomes, etc and got lots of xp, but to go from 39 to 50? WOW, somehow that just does not add up to me and I was constantly farming.

Just wanted to know the secret, I mean, even the Mines in Tumbleweed, if you survive 12 rounds offers over 200 xp per batle, if you are the only survivor, even then, that would take a ton of battles to get from 40 to 50....

So, I am just kinda stunned when he said he is at 50 and not even out of haunted skyway yet.

My first grinding phase was Fin Dorsal. I do not keep track is my number of fights, but here is a general idea of how long I fought Fin. By the time I moved on, I had 13 chameleon pets.

My second grinding phase was the Duck with no Name. I lost count how many fights, but roughly a combined 2 weeks of it. Result was 3 Scorpions, a Tropical Sky snake, and 2 Armadillos. I actually got the second one a day after I got my first. That was when I ended the duck grind.

My third and final grinding phase was Squinty, in Cave of Echoes. Not a major boss, but a kill boss only fight that ended on turn 1 or 2 and rewarded me with up to 2,000 (very very rare, and only seen it once) gold. Average gold was about 600 per fight, with a record low of 35 gold (seen that twice). That is when I hit level 50, and grinded a bit more after that to level my companions to at least 47. All of them.

Any bosses I look for now will be in the final world for equipment drops, not necessarily gold.