Well thanks for making such an addictive game! Im on the grind to get everyone to lvl ten and its definitely a lot more bearable with the new wizard. Everyones lvl 8 at least so far. One thing I was wondering about is if there's more dragons than spots. As in, I have 24 dragons at the moment, but are there really 30? And then I was also wondering a bit more about the dragon paradise idea (I like Valhalla better... haha). When you don't have to manage it anymore, do items just don't matter? And you said it opens a spot to buy a new egg. Will this new dragon just be the former version of the dragon you just sent to dragon paradise? I like the fact that each dragon is their own and having a bunch of the same would lose that uniqueness.
Nope there are only 24 dragons in the game right now. We're releasing a special 25th dragon in the next update as part of a one-time only $1.99 pack with 50 gems, 10,00 coins, and an 8-Bit Dragon. He looks AWESOME! It's kind of a test to see if players are willing to spend money on the game by offering a crazy awesome deal. I don't think the coins are very appealing to high level players like yourself, but we put all unique animations into the 8-Bit Dragon and he's by far my favorite dragon now. I'm excited to buy him on my personal device. In terms of Valhalla, you can only get each type of dragon once. We made that design decision that every dragon should be special early on. So the new dragon you get will be a new dragon! We've got about 5 more dragons designed for when we roll it out. Also, we're thinking of lowering the nests the player gets to not overload them and to get them to Valhalla earlier, BUT for early adopters they are going to get to keep all the nests they've unlocked! I think we may cap it at 15, and maybe allow players to pay gems to unlock more slots... Also treasures WILL factor into sending your dragon off to Valhalla. The current idea being that it costs 100 hearts to send a level 10 dragon to Valhalla, so you need good enough treasures to do that. We're playing around with how or if treasures will factor into once they are in Valhalla... This is still a month or so away from being out.... This week is guilds and gifting and next week is some long overdue streamlining of some of the core flows, like 1 touch trips and less tapping to send dragons off and get them barfing. Then we launch worldwide and that should give us the kick in the pants needed to get Valhalla into the game!
The exclusive dragon sounds awesome! I'd definitely purchase it. As long as the exclusive dragon idea isn't done too often, I think a lot of other people will also be on board. That's great. I'm happy that you guys also feel that each dragon should be special. And I know I know it's far off, but I'm really excited for Valhalla! My vision of what Valhalla should be is this. When you click on the door, you enter Valhalla. It'll be similar to the normal dragon nesting area. Possibly nest in Valhalla will also have to be purchased. When you send a dragon there, it'll go through a metamorphisis which will take a certain amount of time. Once done, the dragon will come out looking like an evolved version of itself (or a glowing "godly" look could work), and then you can send another dragon. Once "graduated" a dragon will automatically generate money. The amount of money generated will be dictated by the amount of hearts it has - I was thinking 1 heart = 50 coins/hr, but a dream item will add a .3 bonus. As each normal job generates roughly 1000 coins/hr, so 100 hearts will yield the same results on a maxed out dragon. Maybe the money can be added to a pot which you can collect anytime and it can be upgraded with gems to hold more total coins. The biggest problem I see with an automatic dragon is that it'll be very hard to get those respective dragons dream items. So to appease this, maybe the dragons in Valhalla can have a cooldown timer on a bonus, and once done you have a chance to get one of their dream items, coins or gems. I hope some of my ideas are helpful to you guys. I really love how much you guys have made the barrier between developer and consumer transparent. I love knowing what you guys are up to, and also feel that my input is actually being heard. So thanks for that!
The current idea is that Valhalla will consist of Dragons in sets of 5 and you collect from a set every x hours and like DragonVale you can collect partial rewards before it hits the cap. The more dragons in a set the faster the rate/the more coins the set can hold ready for you to collect. Also it's going to be landscape rather than portrait and serve as kind of a trophy case for all the dragons you've collected. Right now treasures and hearts don't factor into Valhalla, you just need them to get there, but we're thinking about introducing something maybe in the future! But first things first, we've got to get Guilds out the door and try to get some organic installs and get our 8-bit pack out and see if players like the game enough to buy something!
ARGGH. Our new build just got rejected by Apple cause we had our new 8-Bit Dragon/gem pack set to consumable rather than non-consumable... It'll be another week for that update, but we'll go worldwide shortly after that! On the upside, we worked this week on some improvements to the flow and it's feeling sooo much better. Now you can tap the suitcase icon above a dragon's head and send them off on their highest heart trip without going in the menu and when they come back you only have to tap them if they found a treasure or gem, otherwise they will start barfing automatically! Excited to get this next build out!
Wow that's a bummer! But didn't know you guys were releasing an update so soon. Sounds like one after the other! So was the flow improvement included in the update with the new dragon? Or is that a separate one? If it is, anything else included with the dragon update? I was wondering how you guys were going to do a one-tap job, but that way sounds awesome! One thing I would like to say is that personally I usually go for the top dream item jobs, not necessarily the last job. So I'd love it if you were able to favourite a job and then every time you click the suitcase, it'll do that job. And if there's not enough hearts, they'll just automatically sleep. I know I should try it before saying anything, but that's just what I'm thinking. Also, I know it's still a long way off, but tell me you guys don't plan on just getting rid of all the equipment once they're sent to Valhalla!
All the stuff that was in the last update (8-bit dragon, guilds, gifting) will be rolled into the next submission! It's gonna be a big 'un! That's gonna be the build that we push worldwide! So fingers crossed we get through this time. I like the favorite job idea, I'll keep that in the back of my head! Not sure yet what will happen with gear when you go to valhalla, we want to do something cool eventually especially with artifacts and dream treasures, but we might just keep it simple for the first pass and get fancier later on.
That's awesome! Can't wait for the new update. I was excited for the last one, but it seemed like it was more balancing. This one actually has new mechanics and dragons, so I'm really excited for it! I just hope that my gear isn't used as an offering to get into Valhalla. A lot of time was spent crafting them! haha. I was thinking about a cool way to have another gem-sink would be to have a timed (daily? weekly?) item available in the store for a few gems each (maybe 7 for the first since you get two back, then +1 gem for each extra you buy). This would definitely help us get items to level 10, and to get the specific item for a bit more gems than using the chests. And I'd still really like the little exclamation mark on menu button to go away unless a fuse spot is open! I also think a small daily bonus is a good way to get people to come back everyday. I know you guys have a lot on your plates, but I just like suggesting things before I forget them. Haha. PS. I'd love a Mechadragon as the next premium dragon.
Ya Mechadragon! I think we've got some concepts for a robot dragon too! We just submitted yesterday, so fingers crossed, I expect we'll hear next Monday on approval. Yep! That fusion exclamation is on our radar too, it definitely could be better. We're gonna do a quick build and get incentivized video ads in, probably similar to Hay Day if you've seen them there. You'll get a special visitor and he'll give you an offer to watch a video and get a gem. Then after that, we'll digging into Valhalla!
Here's sneak peak EXCLUSIVE for you guys of the 8-Bit Dragon: Plus, all his animations are 8-bit, including his coin barf!
Haha he looks awesome. 8-bit items as well?! Can't wait to have him. Just about have everyone to lvl 10, so it'll be a little easier for me to grt him up.
We're in review! Fingers crossed! @xbtran How many hearts do the majority of your dragons have? I've got to start balancing how many hearts it will take to send a Dragon off to Valhalla and that would be some great data!
The majority of them are over 100 hearts. 17 pf them to be exact. My dragon with the lowest heart has 80, while the highest has 145. I can give you exact numbers of all of them later tn if thats something that might help out! I think 100 hearts is fair. The hard thing to balance would be what is done with the items after. If theyre kept, it'll be easy to get everyone there. If theyre sacrificed, I'm sure a lot of players including myself would be upset. So thats the biggest problem!
Approved and slowly going live! We'll probably make sure nothing explodes, then go worldwide tomorrow!
Just updated. Got the new dragon and he looks awesome. New UI change hurts my head! But does look cleaner. Just gotta get used to it. One thing that I dislike is each egg only shows total hearts and removed how many hearts they have. Showing how many hearts they have was useful for placing the heart wizard
Worldwide release tomorrow if all goes well! I held on to that current hearts for a while too, but between the max hearts and the progress bar (which is now WAAY more accurate) you can infer heart levels. Let me know if you have any problems! We're trying to get a new build in for end of day!
Yea I really notice the accuracy in the level bar! And everything is so much more streamlined. It trips me out that I don't have to send the dragons off and they automatically go. Haha! So far I haven't ran into anything. Though I do question why we can't invite people by user to our guild. And I haven't really had a chance to tey out guilds since I don't know anyone to add haah. Anyone who picks this up, join my guild - TA Dragons
