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Post by MacGyver on Sept 15, 2008 10:56:43 GMT -5
I haven't tried the technique yet, and hope to be wrong in my thinking, but don't find you can make 12 sets (with occasional by-chance 2x or 3x multipliers) in the same time it takes you to set up a complicated chain? It doesn't take long to setup, about 10-15 seconds, if that, plus its way more fun to watch the multipliers and try to improve your chain by working in tools and prolonging its 'life'
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Post by artemisliero on Sept 15, 2008 11:34:14 GMT -5
Teeehehe!! I made a x10!!! I might post a pic later if I figure out how to get the snapshot out of my iPod...
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Post by theconfuzed1 on Sept 15, 2008 14:24:28 GMT -5
Trust me, in the end, compound interest always pays off the best.
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Post by surfmonkey on Sept 16, 2008 3:48:45 GMT -5
IMO, this game is getting worse and worse: Why? Because you're dialing it for how you think people should play it, not for how they do play it. Oh well.
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Post by artemisliero on Sept 16, 2008 14:53:47 GMT -5
It's not said that you MUST or even SHOULD play in this way... IT'S A TIP!!! You wanna get pushed in a certain direction, then follow this post. If you want to create your own direction that's perfectly fine but don't say that people are told how to play it. It helped me and many others, and that's because we chose to follow the advice. It's not the ONLY way to play the game, it simple, fast, and effective. Be my guest if you don't wanna try. /rant
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Post by surfmonkey on Sept 16, 2008 19:07:38 GMT -5
That's all well and good, but as a designer of interfaces, I see this sort of thing all the time. Clients get it in their minds that people should interact with their product in a particular way. Meenwhile, people are actually using the product in a totally different way. The developers of AF have made a number of changes to the application that strongly suggest that they're trying to drive people to play the game in a specific way. In my opinion that's made the game far less fun. Sorry if that gets under your skin, but that's how I see it.
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Post by colin on Sept 16, 2008 19:45:34 GMT -5
10 seconds is enough time to clear the whole screen, even without being frantic. I don't know how many points that's worth, but it at least feels like constant progress. Taking 10 seconds to set up a combination, that then gives you a few multipliers, might not be worth as many points.
Can you time yourself sometime, to see how many seconds it takes to set up a worthwhile amount of multiplying?
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Post by golgolath on Sept 18, 2008 14:41:01 GMT -5
If this is "the way the game is meant to be played", then it's the game that's at fault, not the players. That kind of elaborate set-up, while not difficult to visualize, is problematic considering the way Aurora Feint works.
The problem is, the game rules themselves work against you when you're trying to set this up, and they don't work against you in the right way. While you're trying to juggle blocks around into one specific pattern, it's very easy to create three blocks in a row accidentally, thus negating the entire effort, and that's before considering the fact that tools can actively HURT you while you're trying to do this, since they'll match up with quite a few different sets of two resources, thus ruining your entire stack. The game rules are such that it's very easy to accidentally create the wrong result. Far too easy in fact. It's like playing a piano where hitting the wrong key results in an electric shock. Not very fun.
This strategy is akin to belittling people because they want to play solitaire, not build a house of cards. Not everyone wants to deal with something that erratic and fragile. I would hardly call this technique a "strategy." It's not quite as cheap as the "spin blocks randomly and see what happens", but claiming the proper way to play is by forcing the entire game board into one specific pattern then wiping every block off screen at once just sounds boring. There's any number of different combinations that could be created, the "strategy" should not be to do the same single pattern over and over again, that's about as boring as spinning randomly. Imagine a game of poker where the only winning hand was a pair of aces or three jacks. Not very fun.
If the game allowed you to move pieces vertically (relative to your current view) without flipping the iPod sideways, that'd be another matter, but there are issues with a puzzle game that forces me to spend half my time flipping their Pod sideways and back a half second later, especially given that ipods aren't always great at detecting those flips accurately. That's a bit hard on the wrists.
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Post by golgolath on Sept 18, 2008 15:15:28 GMT -5
Hmmm, just noticed that post seemed a bit hostile. I've just come off failing level 7/8 of alchemy four times in a row. Just frustrated I guess
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holty
New Member
Posts: 3
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Post by holty on Sept 18, 2008 21:48:53 GMT -5
sounds cool
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Post by colin on Sept 19, 2008 8:47:27 GMT -5
I'm back up to doing level 6 blueprints. I've managed one, and as you'll see below, came close with another. Like golgolath I find trying to do combinations to be a problem, even in the Mine, where you can take all day to set them up. I also find that in the blueprints that using any of the tools doesn't help, the exploding type only gain a few extra points, and the time one is as useless as ever. So I don't bother now. What does work for me is to play fast. I don't mean frantic swiping, I mean that every swipe I do makes a set, or the next move makes a set. Working that way lets me collect hundreds of crystals within 240 seconds, but I am at the mercy of the randomness of the game. In the below case the game didn't give me too many wind crystals, which unfortunately were one of the ones that I needed 140 of. I've thought of a tweak to my technique, which I'll try later, and that is to make as many sets out of the ones I don't need, before making a set of the ones I do need. That should increase the chances of the ones I need getting the multiplier. I'll report back later how that goes! Meanwhile, here's the screen shot of my first attempt at the level 6 alchemist:
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Post by osnola on Sept 20, 2008 2:52:46 GMT -5
What does work for me is to play fast. I don't mean frantic swiping, I mean that every swipe I do makes a set, or the next move makes a set. Working that way lets me collect hundreds of crystals within 240 seconds, but I am at the mercy of the randomness of the game. In the below case the game didn't give me too many wind crystals, which unfortunately were one of the ones that I needed 140 of. For me, this method works very well even for level 7 blueprints if I keep pulling up blocks. For level 8 blueprints (and the sorcerer's level 7 blueprint), I use the same method but I must also make some small combinations (to obtain some small multipliers). Using more complex strategies to create combinations, I would not be surprised if we can finish more challengeable blueprints (like 500/500/... in 270 seconds). Maybe, it would be interesting to have a training smith where we can try the available challenges using few crystals ( a tenth of the crystals ) but we do not obtain the tools/armors/... if we succeed the challenge. This may help the players which think that the blueprints are too difficult. Another possibility could be to have more levels (maybe 20 instead of 8), like that the difficulty of the blueprints can become more progressive. For the players which think that the game is too short, one idea could be to associate the last level blueprint to a rank system which keeps the 100 (or 1000 or ....) best scores....
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Post by theconfuzed1 on Sept 21, 2008 20:09:10 GMT -5
No worries. As I prefaced the thread, this is not meant to be "the only way to play the game." It is simply one way that works. Personally, I like to see how far I can get the multiplier to go. I've been able to get to about 15x a few times, but everytime I do, it seems that I end up leveling up, and the mutiplier goes away. So if you don't like playing the game this way, then by all means, don't. I have no idea what the developers' intentions for this game are, outside of what I've seen in the beta, but from the posts that I have read of theirs, I've learned that they are open to suggestion. Otherwise, this forum probably wouldn't exist.
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jemni
Junior Member
The Strategist stops time while his fury eats my dreams
Posts: 61
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Post by jemni on Sept 22, 2008 14:55:22 GMT -5
I have a lot of trouble working out the timing of flipping the phone to line up more matches in the vertical, that causes my "loose" blocks to fall down and then not line up they way I wanted them. But if I wait too long, for after they are in place and exploding, then I run out my combo chain timer and am back to square one.
so, bottom line, the best I've achieved, with your strategy even, is 5x, basically having just what I'm able to manage on one screen before I can pull any more out.
I think I need to slow the game down maybe. I'm running at around 60 which is what I've worked up to as I've levelled up. I def. think speed ought to affect the reward bonus or something. Good idea.
I understand this is not the only strategy, but heck if I can get any other strategy to work at levels 6 and 7. I'll try the speedy appoach, but I've been going as speedily as i can, trying to get 2x or 3x on the resources I need with little success.
I know Jason has managed to get 64x or whatever. Well, I challenge him to beat these upper levels WITHOUT using the strategy of this thread. I agree with those folks here who say that you shouldn't design a game to be beaten with one and only one strategy. So, I'm wondering how Danielle plays and if they have other strategies that work. Especially a strategy involving tools.
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jemni
Junior Member
The Strategist stops time while his fury eats my dreams
Posts: 61
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Post by jemni on Sept 22, 2008 15:36:56 GMT -5
I haven't tried the technique yet, and hope to be wrong in my thinking, but don't find you can make 12 sets (with occasional by-chance 2x or 3x multipliers) in the same time it takes you to set up a complicated chain? 12 sets = 2 sets of 3 resources and 3 sets of the other 2 resources lets say you get 2 2x bonuses and one 3x so resource 1 has final total of 9 (3 + (3 x2)) resource 2 has total of 9 (3 + (3 x 2)) resources 3 has total of 6 (3 + 3) resource 4 has total of 12 (3 + (3 x 3)) resource 5 has total of 9 (3 + 3 + 3) Now let's say you chained all these with a setup that took as long resource 1 (3 + (3 x 7)) = 24 resource 2 ((3 x 10) + (3 x 4)) = 42 resource 3 ((3 x 5) + (3 x 8)) = 39 resource 4 ((3 x 3) + (3 x 6)) + (3 x 12)) = 63 resource 5 ((3 x 2) + (3 x 11) + (3 x 9)) = 66 So now you can see the obvious advantage of using multipliers. Yes, there's more overhead and frustration, but they are the best way to get high numbers. The tricky bit is getting your desired resource in the Mine to be resource 4 and 5 in this example.
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