I may have had an epiphany today

[theconfuzed1]

I've been struggling with summoning a better ghost. I stack the tools the way others do, and I've done a fairly decent job of maintaining my multiplier in the past, but for whatever reason, it is difficult for me to do so now, after the tool stack.

I am able to continue the chain, but for reasons that I am unable to explain, my multiplier always resets itself, even when it seems that I haven't missed any of the chain!

I've been banging my head against the wall trying to figure out what I've been doing wrong, and what I can do to improve this.

Today it hit me... There are different processors in different devices! I have a first gen iPhone.

I'm wondering if game performance my vary with more recent devices.

Could some of you chime in please, with your luck on continuing the chains, and what device you're running it on (First gen iPhone, iPhone 3G, iTouch, second gen iTouch)?

I think it may be interesting to read the results.

Personally, I'm hoping for an iPhone model bump soon, with higher capacity. That is the first prerequisite for me to get a new one. The second prerequisite is that it be jailbroken.

Now that the iPhone Dev Team has soft-unlocked the 3G, I'm hoping that they're finally working on the jailbreak for the second gen iTouch, because I believe the next iPhone will be based on the same framework.

Oh... some of you may be reading about the soft-unlock, now, for the first time.

They have posted a live video demo of their new tools, code named "yellowsn0w." Read about it on their blog, here.

[sweitz]

I also have a 1st-gen iPhone, and I also sometimes have chains that suddenly stop. It does seem to be caused by a stutter, lending credence to your idea of it being processor related... still, though, most of the time I continue chains ok, with them failing more by my fault than the stutter-glitch. I can usually get beyond 40x and I've gotten up to 74x without any problems. Typically if the chain breaks because of the glitch it does it early (before 10x usually).

[sweitz]

Hmm... Well, I just upgraded to the Arena and the combo system seems to work a bit differently than what I was used to with the Beginning. It is the same idea, just certain little things change the whole feel for me (being able to pop blocks while they are glowing, glow-time of the initial combos in the chain lasting longer, etc.), so my opinion on the matter may have to be altered... I haven't noticed the stutter glitch yet, but the whole game seems to be going more sluggish now. So, anyway, unless you were talking about the Beginning with your initial post, I think my response will have to be temporarily ignored. I didn't reslize the mechanics had been changed from the Beginning to the Arena. Sorry!

[theconfuzed1]

I may have been wrong. I finally managed to get this thing going.

[samuraijack]

The secret of the Dragon Scroll strikes again.

[theconfuzed1]

Wait... What?

[samuraijack]

Kung Fu Panda. The secret of the Dragon Scroll is: there is no secret. You simply need to believe in yourself. For all the talk about secrets and tricks, software or hardware revisions, hacks or cheats... the answer is much simplier. Simply believe you can, then do it. And you did Each little step grants the confidence to take another. It's just a matter of time.

[theconfuzed1]

Jack, do you write fortunes, for fortune cookies, for a living?

That's deep.

[samuraijack]

Not to specifically say you are one of the people I am about to talk about: but enough people lose confidence easily in anything, big or small. Anything from a simple tower puzzle to breaking a previous strength barrier in this game to anything in life really. All it takes is one little win, one previously impossible thing no matter how big, and all of a sudden so many possibilities open up. Like from a simple tower puzzle to breaking a previous strength barrier in this game to anything in life really The leader board topped out a month ago with 13,000 points. Now it's 10x that. I'm going to figure out a way to make it 10x what it is now. Who's to say it's impossible?

[theconfuzed1]

Generally, in life, I don't accept failure in any capacity.

Also, I'm OCD, so I will do the same thing over and over again, as many times as it takes, to make it better.

The sad reality is that I have lost countless hours of sleep over this game!

I don't regret it though, because if it wasn't so, I'd just be as equally wrapped up with some other thing.

The frustrating part for me, was that even with the strategies that were working for other people, I wasn't able to maintain my multiplier, while attempting to summon a better ghost. I was eventually able to come up my own twist though, that works for me, and I killed my previous high score. The best part, is that I feel now that I can do much better, when before, I felt hopelessly unable to overcome my shortcoming.

To make a long story short, the epiphany that I thought I had, wasn't so, but it lead to a real one.

[velosi]

The ghost's strength is really where the long term appeal of this game is, for me. It's horribly addictive, striving for a better multiplier, better ghost. In fact I find I'm less interested in the "duelling" aspect than in the summoning; sounds like it's the same for you.

[tallywacker]

Agree, the dueling almost makes no sense, a high ghost is the product of say, 100 tries...and your just supposed to beat it first try, ghosts dueling ghosts would make more sense.

I wish there was some balance and diversity in the usage of the tools, instead of an exact combo to achieve this, part might be due to what I believe is either an exploit, or a bad definition resulting in the success of the illutionist/sorceror combo.

It's not cheap and is perfectly legitimate, but still it's an exploit

But improving ones ghost is definately a great challenge

[samuraijack]

Ghosts dueling ghosts wouldn't make any more sense than trying a hundred times to defeat a high value ghost. Look at the raw scores. Whoever is higher, or if they are equal whoever gets to that total first, wins ever time.

Tool balance and diversity won't work either. As long as dueling is a race to the ghost's point total, using weapons that increase your multiplier make more sense than weapons that don't, and using those weapons faster makes more sense than not. I said in another post, even with the removal of the residual effect of Illusionist, ghosts will become proportionally less powerful, not make anything more competitive. Under the current system, in order to make all the weapons relevant, they would all have to be changed to do relatively the exact same thing.

The answer is in the Summoning process itself. Right now ghosts are held indefinitely, and there is no cost for Summoning half a million times or more. Ghosts should expire after a certain amount of time. The Summoning process shouldn't be able to be restarted on a whim; every Summon should count as the new ghost. And it should cost something to Summon in the first place, like weapons needing to be charged or purchased through Mining or Smith-like challenges. Dueling could be made relevant by changing the leader board to reflect quality wins rather than just ghost strength. Maybe two different boards?

[burtosis]

Also, the use of weapons (and probably not the devs intent) almost completely removes chains or multipliers from the points equation. Within 10 game seconds it is very easy to get to x90. When you start at x1, and gain x1 for every chain, after just nine chains you are getting one thousand percent (10 times) more points per popped brick. If you start at x90 and gain x1 for every chain, after just nine chains you are getting just ten percent (1.1 times) more points per popped brick. This multiplier dillution drags chaining down to and makes it not relevant as in the past. The game made a switch from chaining and multipliers to fast juggling with the Arena.

Eliminating the weapon effects from chaining and removing multi weapon chains (such as multicolor alchemy) would restore balance between being fast and making chains. Some weapons gaining multipliers is good because it reduces chains from being the only path to high points. I personally think making chains is more fun than being fast but that is just me.

Any good game has multiple sets of pieces that overall bring a balanced game. Warriors or magi cant be the all or nothing class in a good non-broken RPG and to the same extent this applies to AF. Right now three of the six weapons are mostly useless and one is only sort of useful.

[burtosis]

On a positive note though, I do like the bonus you get from doing an orb attack. It is not easy to get five bricks to pop at once and this makes another path to getting a higher point total that balances out the others. Though it might need some tweaking when it comes to playing ghosts because ghosts already have the advantage.

I think striking the right balance between fast juggling, chains, orb attacks, and weapons is what will finally tweak a good game to being perfect. So in order to get a highest score, you would need to utilize all of them, and well, at the same time.