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Dragon Blaze (iOS/Android) |OT| Looks Like Vanillaware, Tastes Like F2P

commish

Jason Kidd murdered my dog in cold blood!
My blackaria has almost 40k hp and she's still a miracle worker in arena. She can keep everyone alive for quite a while as well as well as revive one person. She doesn't do either of those when she dies instantly, you're only taking advantage of one of her abilities. There's plenty of teams that take more than 8 seconds to kill, and a quick dying Blackaria will be a detriment there.

Even with 40k hp mine still usually dies before others. So it's hard for me to say it's better or worse, but it's definitely not terrible, and i can take on other Blackaria teams with no problem

There's very few teams that can't be crippled in 8 seconds in Arena. My BW and BS just unload for 8 seconds and people drop. I avoid teams with ultimate BS or too many healers. I've yet to lose a single match when I do that. My losses have come from the double challenge and going up against teams with Shabelle and Blackaria and/or priest. They just survive forever. But I do feel like I'm wasting her just using her as a one trick pony. After I reach about 7000 arena score I will level her up. I already have the gear waiting for her.
 

arevin01

Member
There's something not right with the playerbase. I'm at rank 104 in arena yet only top 1.366% which means there are only about 8000 ppl who have tried arena. This game seems to be going down instead of up for player growth.
 
There's something not right with the playerbase. I'm at rank 104 in arena yet only top 1.366% which means there are only about 8000 ppl who have tried arena. This game seems to be going down instead of up for player growth.

Arena just started 2 days ago. 8000 doesn't seem too bad. Last week I ended at .86% at rank 122. That makes a population of 14,186 people. It's definitely a decline over a month ago, and there's no doubt the population is declining instead of increasing, but you can't really tell anything until right before the event closes. I don't think it's a super fast decline or anything, but it is definitely a little disheartening. It's certainly discouraged me from spending more money on the game.
 

arevin01

Member
Arena just started 2 days ago. 8000 doesn't seem too bad. Last week I ended at .86% at rank 122. That makes a population of 14,186 people. It's definitely a decline over a month ago, and there's no doubt the population is declining instead of increasing, but you can't really tell anything until right before the event closes. I don't think it's a super fast decline or anything, but it is definitely a little disheartening. It's certainly discouraged me from spending more money on the game.

Its just worrisome because your previous week scores will result in a lower rank because the playerbase is shrinking. So let's say after 2 months your rank 122 is only good for top 1.22% instead of top 0.87% because the player base has shrinked to 10,000 for arena.

EDIT:I don't know how much it cost to maintain an online mobile game but if only a few thousand ppl play regularly, it doesn't look good for future prospects.
 

JigsawX

Member
I'm still trucking along and this game has been very generous for f2p and the wave of content is nice. On the other hand it does put into scope how much you need to be competitive between characters,allies, gear, cards and now gems. Slowly not using up all my shoes / tickets per day now.

As a side note apparently I'm the GM of the gaf guild? Does one of the more active members want it?
 

Pejo

Member
Its just worrisome because your previous week scores will result in a lower rank because the playerbase is shrinking. So let's say after 2 months your rank 122 is only good for top 1.22% instead of top 0.87% because the player base has shrinked to 10,000 for arena.

EDIT:I don't know how much it cost to maintain an online mobile game but if only a few thousand ppl play regularly, it doesn't look good for future prospects.

I think it's a combination of the "rich getting richer" model the game follows and the fact that unless you at least try to stay competitive, there's no reason to do a lot of the events in the first place. Like if you just log on once a day to collect your freebies and burn through shoes/tickets, you don't give a shit about getting rubies in pvp because you'd only get a handful. Same with world bosses. If you aren't sitting with at least a team of a Draco and some enhanced SSS allies, there is no reason for you to burn your tickets on the boss because you likely die at the first or second enrage.

Unless you are in a good place to get something, it just simply isn't worth your time. I think that's where the game is losing a lot of its playerbase, especially for WB/Arena/GB. I don't know how you'd improve on the model honestly, but it seems built to shrink the playerbase down to only the most hardcore players. I guess they're really counting on whales.
 

Yaari

Member
I'm still trucking along and this game has been very generous for f2p and the wave of content is nice. On the other hand it does put into scope how much you need to be competitive between characters,allies, gear, cards and now gems. Slowly not using up all my shoes / tickets per day now.

As a side note apparently I'm the GM of the gaf guild? Does one of the more active members want it?

Pretty sure anyone active left. The reason people left was because it wasnt active enough in the first place.

Anyway my lack of upgraded Draco's is definitely showing. I used to be able to compete in Arena until the weekend, and now I'm already done.
 

Pejo

Member
I'm still trucking along and this game has been very generous for f2p and the wave of content is nice. On the other hand it does put into scope how much you need to be competitive between characters,allies, gear, cards and now gems. Slowly not using up all my shoes / tickets per day now.

As a side note apparently I'm the GM of the gaf guild? Does one of the more active members want it?

If you are planning on leaving the GAF guild for a more active one, I'll take it. I decided I'm not going to chase the guild battle rubies hardcore, so I'll be staying in GAF for my time with the game. My account name is Vexid (i think).
 
I think it's a combination of the "rich getting richer" model the game follows and the fact that unless you at least try to stay competitive, there's no reason to do a lot of the events in the first place. Like if you just log on once a day to collect your freebies and burn through shoes/tickets, you don't give a shit about getting rubies in pvp because you'd only get a handful. Same with world bosses. If you aren't sitting with at least a team of a Draco and some enhanced SSS allies, there is no reason for you to burn your tickets on the boss because you likely die at the first or second enrage.

Unless you are in a good place to get something, it just simply isn't worth your time. I think that's where the game is losing a lot of its playerbase, especially for WB/Arena/GB. I don't know how you'd improve on the model honestly, but it seems built to shrink the playerbase down to only the most hardcore players. I guess they're really counting on whales.

Yea, it's strange. On the surface it makes sense. Perform better, get better rewards. But if you take a deeper look, it's literally designed to shed players. There's no way to make this model have a sustainable and healthy long term population. I'm still able to place 5% in world bosses and 1% in arena. And by some stroke of magic I can place top 50 in Lab. But slowly and surely I'm going to get pushed down. Unless I pull an Archer Ur, I'm never going to hit 1% in world boss. And eventually I'll get pushed down to 5% in Arena. If I ever get to the point that I can't even make 1% in Lab, idk it will definitely suck a lot of the fun out of the game for me, and I'll have to reconsider whether I want to keep playing.

I'm still enjoying it for now, but that's mostly because I can keep making improvements in Lab. For people who are falling farther and farther behind each week -- some of whom have even spent a lot of money -- I can imagine them burning out quickly.

It's just strange that spending money is not more rewarding in this game.
 

commish

Jason Kidd murdered my dog in cold blood!
Yea, it's strange. On the surface it makes sense. Perform better, get better rewards. But if you take a deeper look, it's literally designed to shed players. There's no way to make this model have a sustainable and healthy long term population. I'm still able to place 5% in world bosses and 1% in arena. And by some stroke of magic I can place top 50 in Lab. But slowly and surely I'm going to get pushed down. Unless I pull an Archer Ur, I'm never going to hit 1% in world boss. And eventually I'll get pushed down to 5% in Arena. If I ever get to the point that I can't even make 1% in Lab, idk it will definitely suck a lot of the fun out of the game for me, and I'll have to reconsider whether I want to keep playing.

I'm still enjoying it for now, but that's mostly because I can keep making improvements in Lab. For people who are falling farther and farther behind each week -- some of whom have even spent a lot of money -- I can imagine them burning out quickly.

It's just strange that spending money is not more rewarding in this game.

Yeah I complained about this a few months ago. I haven't really played any other game that has this type of model. The rich get richer, and everyone else just falls further and further behind, especially if you don't get lucky with those few key ally pulls. In other games, the meta shifts and what was uber last week is kind of outdated this week. This allows new players to jump in and compete relatively easily when they can just get a good pull on the gacha and compete. In this game, that's really impossible without spending a ton of money because (i) you won't place well in any event without the good old uber characters and (ii) you have to MAKE the new uber characters, which means you need to invest a shitload of resources just to make the 6 SSS allies you need. How do you make those 6 SSS? You pay a lot of money or you wait months and months to accumulate the necessary rubies because you won't be competing in any event. This just discourages new players, and even old players who can't keep up. It's not a good model.

Anyway, the good news is that I've played games with far less people that are still up and running. As long as there are some folks playing, they will probably keep the servers up, especially because it's still going strong in Korea. Besides the aforementioned "rich get richer" problem, this game also has a marketing problem. It's not marketed anywhere and most folks never even heard about it.

And yes, the fact that spending money, even a lot of money like $100, really doesn't do much for you in this game is just astounding. $100 just gets you a fodder.
 
Yeah I complained about this a few months ago. I haven't really played any other game that has this type of model. The rich get richer, and everyone else just falls further and further behind, especially if you don't get lucky with those few key ally pulls. In other games, the meta shifts and what was uber last week is kind of outdated this week. This allows new players to jump in and compete relatively easily when they can just get a good pull on the gacha and compete. In this game, that's really impossible without spending a ton of money because (i) you won't place well in any event without the good old uber characters and (ii) you have to MAKE the new uber characters, which means you need to invest a shitload of resources just to make the 6 SSS allies you need. How do you make those 6 SSS? You pay a lot of money or you wait months and months to accumulate the necessary rubies because you won't be competing in any event. This just discourages new players, and even old players who can't keep up. It's not a good model.

Anyway, the good news is that I've played games with far less people that are still up and running. As long as there are some folks playing, they will probably keep the servers up, especially because it's still going strong in Korea. Besides the aforementioned "rich get richer" problem, this game also has a marketing problem. It's not marketed anywhere and most folks never even heard about it.

And yes, the fact that spending money, even a lot of money like $100, really doesn't do much for you in this game is just astounding. $100 just gets you a fodder.

I can see them doing something like changing the reward tiers as the playerbase drops. They already do this for guild battle because by its very nature there are fewer participants, so there are separate rewards for rank 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. So they could do something like that to help with the rewards. It won't change the rich get richer problem, but it will at least allow people to feel not completely screwed.

I also don't understand why they do so little marketing. It's honestly a pretty good game, great artwork, fun content. I think they could have 5x as many players if they marketed it a little better. Like, at all.

I'm not sure how I'd fix the money / reward problem. I don't think raising SSS summon rates to something like 10% would be a good answer, because everyone would get the best units in the game way too easily. But maybe increasing SS summon rates to something like 5% would be reasonable. And make gem summons cost 5 rubies instead of 20.
 

JigsawX

Member
If you are planning on leaving the GAF guild for a more active one, I'll take it. I decided I'm not going to chase the guild battle rubies hardcore, so I'll be staying in GAF for my time with the game. My account name is Vexid (i think).

Nah not planning to leave the guild I'm just focusing on other games a lot more. Just if someone wanted the guild leader position they can have it
 

Yaari

Member
Do Garden Earring really drop with aSPD/CRIT. All mine have Accuracy. They suck.

I get 1 per day and each time I do, they have horrendous stats. This is going to take a long long time.
 

Chaos17

Member
I don't know how you guys aren't improving in ranking, personally I started from the 30% then now I am doing 5% without any real effort in every areas. Though, I've a friend who has trouble to go up in ranking but only because he made the mistake to make Greysoul.

http://m.gamevilusa.com/forums/show...-Chapter-2-3-Ally-Preview&p=788061#post788061

Is this El Rio? If so, then that confirms that Angels are coming in 2-3

Hahaha, for once they tease early. That's a good thing :)
 
I don't know how you guys aren't improving in ranking, personally I started from the 30% then now I am 5% without any real effort except for guild battle. Though, I've a friend who has trouble to go up in ranking but only because he made the mistake to make Greysoul.



Hahaha, for once they tease early. That's a good thing :)

I finally went up in Labyrinth, but for World Boss if anything I'm going down. I mean I have fucking decked out Rogue, Fulson, Deathcrown, ultimate Bloodwind, MAX Brightspark, MAX Blackaria, and I still can't get into 1% for either world boss. How fucked up is that? Makes no sense. These are supposed to be some of the best units in the game. I honestly don't know what else I can do except get an Archer Ur, but I'm not even sure that will help. Considering how good I do in Lab I feel like I should be able to hit 1% in world boss no problem, so it just makes no sense to me why I do so bad.
 

RedZone

Neo Member
I finally went up in Labyrinth, but for World Boss if anything I'm going down. I mean I have fucking decked out Rogue, Fulson, Deathcrown, ultimate Bloodwind, MAX Brightspark, MAX Blackaria, and I still can't get into 1% for either world boss. How fucked up is that? Makes no sense. These are supposed to be some of the best units in the game. I honestly don't know what else I can do except get an Archer Ur, but I'm not even sure that will help. Considering how good I do in Lab I feel like I should be able to hit 1% in world boss no problem, so it just makes no sense to me why I do so bad.

probably the lack of defense down is hurting you, as for the hydra boss you probably need all aoe to realistically be top 1%
 
probably the lack of defense down is hurting you, as for the hydra boss you probably need all aoe to realistically be top 1%

Draco Brightspark, (not-Draco) Deathcrown, and Draco Bloodwind (ULTIMATE Bloodwind mind you) are all AoE. And it does jack shit. Bloodwind even has defense down.

I've tried the defense penetration formation, does jack shit. Isn't it a little bit stupid that someone with a 3rd rate unit like Archer Ur can come in and be stronger than 2 ultimate dracos combined because of this one arbitrary skill? It's just poor design and makes no sense.
 

JigsawX

Member
Ah just realized something that might kill the game for me personally. I knew you had to pay gold to remove gems but I thought that was if you wanted to keep the gem. I thought you could override the gem if you wanted to though with a new gem. Looks like you have to remove the previous gem to put in a new one.

So if I have a S / SS gem and I want to upgrade to another tier of gem on that equipment I have to pay the removal fee. I have a ton of gold put aside but later on when you have a bunch of higher level gems for all your characters and allies that's going to be a immense gold sink. Grade a is 30k I can only imagine what the higher ones are.

Balancing tickets between raiding, arena and other activies is pretty consuming right now without factoring gold farming laby. I do also have gold farming accessories so I can make 6k a run roughly with the dungeons but still feels very off putting.

I could just be cranky due to a intense work week but eh, wish the gem thing wasn't like that.
 

RedZone

Neo Member
Draco Brightspark, (not-Draco) Deathcrown, and Draco Bloodwind (ULTIMATE Bloodwind mind you) are all AoE. And it does jack shit. Bloodwind even has defense down.

I've tried the defense penetration formation, does jack shit. Isn't it a little bit stupid that someone with a 3rd rate unit like Archer Ur can come in and be stronger than 2 ultimate dracos combined because of this one arbitrary skill? It's just poor design and makes no sense.

well his defense down applies to the entire party so it benefits a lot mroe than just 1 unit, and are you using priest for hydra?
 

commish

Jason Kidd murdered my dog in cold blood!
Ah just realized something that might kill the game for me personally. I knew you had to pay gold to remove gems but I thought that was if you wanted to keep the gem. I thought you could override the gem if you wanted to though with a new gem. Looks like you have to remove the previous gem to put in a new one.

So if I have a S / SS gem and I want to upgrade to another tier of gem on that equipment I have to pay the removal fee. I have a ton of gold put aside but later on when you have a bunch of higher level gems for all your characters and allies that's going to be a immense gold sink. Grade a is 30k I can only imagine what the higher ones are.

Balancing tickets between raiding, arena and other activies is pretty consuming right now without factoring gold farming laby. I do also have gold farming accessories so I can make 6k a run roughly with the dungeons but still feels very off putting.

I could just be cranky due to a intense work week but eh, wish the gem thing wasn't like that.

Is this a joke?

Welp just tried it out. Unreal. That's so dumb.
 
Is this a joke?

Welp just tried it out. Unreal. That's so dumb.

It is dumb. Personally I'm not even going to bother upgrading expensive gems. I'll wait for a new raid set to come out, and replace them in the new set. I'll upgrade green and white gems to higher tier, but blue and higher aren't getting upgraded until a new set comes out.
 

JigsawX

Member
It is dumb. Personally I'm not even going to bother upgrading expensive gems. I'll wait for a new raid set to come out, and replace them in the new set. I'll upgrade green and white gems to higher tier, but blue and higher aren't getting upgraded until a new set comes out.

Yea was thinking of this. One of my characters has full slots unlocked but this way of doing it.....makes bag space very confining. Wish buying space was 2 rows or a whole box. The current inventory pricing is very depressing.
 

arevin01

Member
Draco Brightspark, (not-Draco) Deathcrown, and Draco Bloodwind (ULTIMATE Bloodwind mind you) are all AoE. And it does jack shit. Bloodwind even has defense down.

I've tried the defense penetration formation, does jack shit. Isn't it a little bit stupid that someone with a 3rd rate unit like Archer Ur can come in and be stronger than 2 ultimate dracos combined because of this one arbitrary skill? It's just poor design and makes no sense.

I just realized its quite silly you have DBS and BW ULT and still can't get top 1%. That's pretty absurd to me and discouraging for other players.

Some decisions don't seem to make sense at first glance but when you realized its a f2p, its all bout them wanting you to spend money.
 

Salamande

Member
These are the moments I live for.

8gzZ7EWtRy32rVO1wN9Zjxrcq8oANBtvj_6VdzomgtcHyRA_BHByM5X36tAMbB2if1mA-qMN-RaNGo9y3Mjvzk9NgIMUWk94SuH9pF_yx-pvzcKhEQNE7GNnV62Wo9RT-x7_PyjY0Hjhj8YZjlmubfGDmGqNzaixfafKsb8ej_QzXxuJrZVBhDkmpD7V9R3PD8Enq9jHYJxPzuL5GgoQjBE6w1wE0JWxSNh8Fwx6nFkeox8UMgZ-_zkBjuHpJT8i9hIVk5j0a2OEiXO3bqD_kZHmfPtHdIyFAxDs05QgBKXP4dqLngCpGFyJlNs30-T7BuoKtSsOg0JytUYg86-KJvi8IgxMs86EJNnq9TFUhKuQ0C04vd1vsc1b01bS-EtFBLVmDr0eGNKXtaN9Y8g3gWRk-83FpoqWPEqOQ-IZAHUBKUQQAEoj9peuo2l6vSn3DSd_kz4_vALuw8rgjaL2zSiBaM9w1bT9V-WJMzG2gsSC1JD0pq_urb5eSbSpQXPEVDjBcDKanIB8SNqxxZ_Mc9o=w1080-h608-no
 

Rurunaki

Member
Ah just realized something that might kill the game for me personally. I knew you had to pay gold to remove gems but I thought that was if you wanted to keep the gem. I thought you could override the gem if you wanted to though with a new gem. Looks like you have to remove the previous gem to put in a new one.

So if I have a S / SS gem and I want to upgrade to another tier of gem on that equipment I have to pay the removal fee. I have a ton of gold put aside but later on when you have a bunch of higher level gems for all your characters and allies that's going to be a immense gold sink. Grade a is 30k I can only imagine what the higher ones are.

Balancing tickets between raiding, arena and other activies is pretty consuming right now without factoring gold farming laby. I do also have gold farming accessories so I can make 6k a run roughly with the dungeons but still feels very off putting.

I could just be cranky due to a intense work week but eh, wish the gem thing wasn't like that.

420k gold to remove SSS gem if I remember the stream correctly.
 

Sciel

Member
That's because Draco BW is the overrated flavor of the month (likely due to that blog that was posted months ago claiming he was the most OP of all).

Going from a +MAX or +Ultimate BW, is not going to propel you from 5% to 1% for WB. (Have pretty much stopped enhancing my Dracos now and am stockpiling SSS for angels.)

I've got an arguably more OP team than you and have recently fallen out of 1% for the weekly events (both wb/labys/etc). Its pretty much expected, At this point, a large amount of people would have highly powered up DBW/DBS in their teams as compared to previous weeks. Any advantage is now pretty much null and it all comes down to the other units in the party (ie: Those with Belle in their party have a much easier time in Hydra).

This is also why investing most/all of your resources to power up just one unit (ie: one Draco) is a big big gamble.
 

Sciel

Member
I'm assuming you mean bloodwind haha. Don't get me wrong, he does help immensely.
Its just tough when you are competing with players who have the exact same Draco units as you.
 

Goroh

Member
For hydra the best way is a magnify priest. I went from barely making 5% to TOP 50 just by switching hero. It's incredible.
 
Finally managed to get a team of *Character*(Rogue) + SSS tank(Freya) + 3 SS guys (Orc priest, 1 Orc Archer + 1 Ghost Bat Archer)

This seems good although i'd prefer a better priest, don't think those totem heal that much when a guy is spiked and some AOE dps like a mage. Although the Bat has a nice AOE attack it feels weakish?

I do have a stable with a bunch of S characters but no fodder to max them for combines :(

Anyway, time to go through Hero mode.
 

Yaari

Member
Wait for angels? Only 12 more days.

I guess.

Saw someone mention the best formation, but I forgot which he was talking about. They said it would easily hit top ratings in WB if using mages. Was it the Concentration one? Anyone knows?

Anyone else didn't get their tickets yet? Also, some emergency maintenance going on now.
 

Chaos17

Member
Ah just realized something that might kill the game for me personally. I knew you had to pay gold to remove gems but I thought that was if you wanted to keep the gem. I thought you could override the gem if you wanted to though with a new gem. Looks like you have to remove the previous gem to put in a new one.

Meh, seriously, I am GLAD that we're ABLE to remove gems!
Many games don't allow that and you need to go back farm them over and over.
I don't care about the gold, too easy to make in lab.

But I hate hoping that RNG will bless me with enough luck to get X drop so yeah those gems I am glad that I can KEEP them and make stronger ones over time thanks to that.
 

wapplew

Member
Gem will follow you the whole game, you will eventually get them all until they introduce something new for you to grind.
 

garath

Member
No point in keeping the white gems right? Taking up so much space :(

Got my priest to 60 finally. Had 3 fiercely blazing pieces all ready for her. Need one more to get the attack speed bonus.

But even at level 60 she already made a big difference in hydra. Broke my previous record handily. Of course I also have max belle snow this week too.
 

commish

Jason Kidd murdered my dog in cold blood!
Whoa it looks like my account was wiped. I logged in and all my characters were gone, had me create a new character.
 

JigsawX

Member
Meh, seriously, I am GLAD that we're ABLE to remove gems!
Many games don't allow that and you need to go back farm them over and over.
I don't care about the gold, too easy to make in lab.

But I hate hoping that RNG will bless me with enough luck to get X drop so yeah those gems I am glad that I can KEEP them and make stronger ones over time thanks to that.

I should prob clarify. I have no problem with us being able to use gold to keep gems, that is nice but I dislike the fact that they don't include the option to not do that and just replace the gem. The SS and sss gems you want to keep but between all your characters you'll eventually have a ton of various rank gems. It makes putting in gems another chore. Should I upgrade these A jewels to a S / ss ones for the boost or just wait for the next better rolled item or even raid set.

Gold is easier to get now compared to launch but if you consistently upgrade gem its going to be a substantial drain. Tickets mostly go to arena / raids for me I want to say and then there are those that GB. Dungeon farming is viable but with other stuff such as limit breaking, cards its not going to be overflowing imo.

If you choose to hold all your gems that's going to be rough also. Maybe it's just me but I have one character with max space and two alts and I'm constantly strained for space. This is my personal gripe though based on time constraints.
 

Yaari

Member
I'm gonna assume they are just having server issues because I can't log in again. I hope.

Are you sure it didnt set you to the EU or Asia server by acciddent?


And yeah they are screwing around with those servers. Some maintenance earlier today too.
 

commish

Jason Kidd murdered my dog in cold blood!
I guess.

Saw someone mention the best formation, but I forgot which he was talking about. They said it would easily hit top ratings in WB if using mages. Was it the Concentration one? Anyone knows?

Anyone else didn't get their tickets yet? Also, some emergency maintenance going on now.

After looking at all the formations, it seemed like the mage formation (maybe called concentration, game is down so i can't check) was the best for DPS output. The formation bonus is accuracy, which is useful but not as good as the crit damage boost from the archer formation. However, the character specific boosts are better, as you get 4 spots with +attack damage and the first spot is attack speed. I think it's +crit in the hunter formation, which is less ideal because of diminishing returns.
 

Pejo

Member
Weird, I logged in this morning and had a Premium Ally and S Ally waiting for me in my inbox with my daily surprise chest. It wasn't related to the login bonus or GM thing either. Maybe it was for the downtime. Did you guys get them too?
 
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